The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 2 (of 8) eBook

“’He covered me with jewels, and tried everything he could to tempt me to become his wife, and in spite of my inexperience in life, he consulted me with regard to everything he undertook, and one evening, after I had stroked his face with my hand, I persuaded him without any difficulty, to make his will, by which he left me all his savings, and the circus and everything belonging to it.

“’It was in the middle of winter, near Moscow; it snowed continually, and one almost burned oneself at the stoves in trying to keep warm.  Rapha Ginestous had had supper brought into the largest van, which was his, after the performance, and for hours we ate and drank.  I was very nice towards him, and filled his glass every moment; I even sat on his knee and kissed him.  And all his love, and the fumes of the alcohol of the wine mounted to his head, and gradually made him so helplessly intoxicated, that he fell from his chair inert, and as if he had been struck by lightning, without opening his eyes or saying a word.

“’The rest of the troupe were asleep, and the lights were out in all the little windows, and not a sound was to be heard, while the snow continued to fall in large flakes.  So having put out the petroleum lamp, I opened the door, and taking the drunkard by the feet, as if he had been a bale of goods, I threw him out into that white shroud.

“’The next morning the stiff and convulsed body of Rapha Ginestous was picked up, and as everybody knew his inveterate drinking habits, no one thought of instituting an inquiry, or of accusing me of a crime, and thus I was avenged, and had a yearly income of nearly fifteen thousand francs.  What, after all, is the good of being honest, and of pardoning our enemies, as the Gospel bids us?’

“And now,” Louis d’Arandal said in conclusion, “suppose we go and have a cocktail or two at the Casino, for I do not think that I have ever talked so much in my life before.”

MADAME TELLIER’S ESTABLISHMENT

PART I

They used to go there every evening at about eleven o’clock, just like they went to the cafe.  Six or eight of them used to meet there; they were always the same set, not fast men, but respectable tradesmen, and young men, in government or some other employ, and they used to drink their Chartreuse, and tease the girls, or else they would talk seriously with Madame, whom everybody respected, and then they used to go home at twelve o’clock.  The younger men would sometimes stay the night.

It was a small, comfortable house, at the corner of a street behind Saint Etienne’s church, and from the windows one could see the docks, full of ships which were being unloaded, and the old, gray chapel, dedicated to the Virgin, on the hill.

Madame, who came of a respectable family of peasant proprietors in the department of the Eure, had taken up that profession, just as she would have become a milliner or dressmaker.  The prejudice against prostitution, which is so violent and deeply rooted in large towns, does not exist in the country places in Normandy.  The peasant says: